Owner of Romanian BCR lends EUR 91 mln to US group Blackstone

Austrian group Erste Group, which owns the local lender BCR, has granted a loan of EUR 91 million to the US group Blackstone to help it finance the acquisition of 12 logistics projects in Central and Eastern Europe from Austrian real estate group Immofinanz. Five of the properties are in Hungary, four are in Romania, two are in Poland, and one is in Slovakia. The portfolio amounts to 265,000 sqm of logistic space, and two of the projects, which are in Bucharest and Ploiesti, are still under construction. Immofinanz will complete them. “The investment market in real estate in Central and Eastern Europe rose by 19% in 2015. The volume of transactions increased particularly in our core markets, namely Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, and we expect this trend to continue,” said Richard Wilkinson, Head of Commercial Real Estate at Erste Group Bank. editor@romania-insider.com